Flush
by winterslove
Summary: Toshiro a guilty orphan and Renji a unexcepted gay. Poker. yaoi later tohsixtatts
1. Loner's Game

The men at the table ground their teeth and munched on their lips as they watched with wary eyes. The felt green table spattered with poker chips and cards shook from one man's knee bouncing against it in angst. A man with long flaxen locks twirled a length on his spindly finger, his dark eyes flickering from his deck to the white-haired boy's face. Seated next to the flustered blonde was a rather feral looking man with cyan hair and his scarred eyes slit in murderous content as he stared unblinkingly at his competitor.

_Brute. _Toshiro thought as he looked over his deck at the table. Each man had set their hand of cards down, each with a poor combination that only guaranteed their pockets being emptied. His eyes flickered to meet the teal eyes of the cattish man diagonal to him. The rash man had bet all his wallets worth, six hundred bucks, and held a confident swagger and his jaw set in a fierce smile. Until now. His hair was disgruntled, even more than before, from his hand sweeping through it in discomfort and his lips turned down in a scowl. His knuckles cracked from the pressure he pulsed through his clenched fist.

Toshiro sighed and flicked his wrist around. All were Aces. The blue-haired man's jaw dropped along with his eyebrows and the blonde looked as if he were about to puke. Two other men stormed from the table, saying something about losing a game to a "kid". Toshiro winked over his cards cheekily at the blue-haired man and leaned over to collect his spoils.

A grunt reached his ear as he picked the last chip up between his thumb and forefinger. A gruff hand slammed down on his petite wrist and wrapped its fingers around it, yanking him to face its owner. The blue-haired man, Logan, growled viciously down at his face. Toshiro continued to keep his face stoic and unfazed as the man held onto his arm bruisingly tight. Logan tilted his grip, causing Toshiro's wrist to move back and show the coin almost like it was being dissected. Logan's teal eyes flashed up from the coin to meet Toshiro's.

"You cheated." the man accused.

Toshiro snorted. "You're just too pathetic to admit you lost to a seventeen year old."

Logan growled and released his grip on the boy's wrist and shoved it into his collar, fisting a clump of the clothe and hoisting him up to stand on his toes. "You see how I got these? You see!" he jerked his hand to shake him in emphasis. He pressed his face closer to Toshiro's, his face syill held tight in his poker mask. "I've been in fights, some you'd never want to imagine yourself in." he growled out. "You want me to put these on your pretty little face?" he pointed to the diamond shaped scrapes at each of his eyes at the rim of the bottom lids. "Got 'em for breaking the rules too, kitty."

Toshiro just stared at him. Logan's hand slackened, in obvious discomfort at how the boy was studying him with unmoving eyes. One of his thin eyebrows arched. "I still believe you're pathetic for not taking defeat so gracefully. It does rather make you look like an idiot." Logan opened his mouth but was set back with a steely look. Toshiro jerked his angular chin towards the scars. "And those are no battle scars. Only a sexually confused murderer or homicidal woman would set those on your face. _And,_" he pointedly said. "I really do appreciate the pet names but I'm not gay so you can drop your gay love for me right here on the table along with your cash…" He silently opened his hand and blew the chip directly into the stunned man's face.

Yanking his wrist away, Toshiro made his way to the black jack table at the far end of the bar. A rickety table was set up, its felt peeling up at the edges and the legs had definitely taken on some water damage and hungry termites. A man with ruby hair, almost to his waist, had his back to him wearing the traditional saloon waiter garb the restraunt gave to its employees. He idly washed out a glass and whistled a tune under his breath, ignorant of Toshiro's presence. Toshiro cleared his throat and the man jumped, his hair billowing in a crimson cloud.

The man clasped a hand at his chest as he smiled with a hint of an embarrassed blush tint his cheeks. "Shit. You scared me." He sat the glass on the bar beside him and filled it with a golden liquid. "You wanting to play? Renji by the way." He stuck out his hand. Toshiro looked down at it and reluctantly pressed his palm to his. He wasn't sure what kind of trick -or even if he had any- this man had up his sleeve. He had taken enough teasing from the other men for one night.

Renji winked jovially and started to set the table up.

"How much ya bettin'?" He asked while decking the cards.

"Seven hundred."

Renji's eyes bulged and he whistled, still flipping the cards around in his tattooed hands.

When the preparations were done, Renji slicked out a few cards to Toshiro. Renji flicked his cards to their faces, showing a subtotal of seventeen.

"Seventeen." he said proudly. "Can you beat tha-"

"Twenty one."

Renji's jaw slacked and he counted the total of his cards at least five times before looking at Toshiro's face fully. "How the hell?"

Toshiro started to gather up his ever growing winnings when Renji looked up at him, aghast. "How old are you?"

Toshiro looked up with a raised brow. Renji stared for a while until he got what his words had sounded like.

"No, no!" he waved his arms and shook his head defensively. "Didn't mean it like that. Just curious."

Toshiro hesitated. He usually didn't trust people around the bars. He didn't want to get hurt again. But this man seemed different and more approachable than most, a weird kind of attraction about him brought pulled him to him. He was just one of those people Toshiro figured. "Seventeen. You?"

"I'm legal. Twenty one." he smiled. A giddy and half drunken look glazed over his face as he nearly pranced in his spot. "That's the number of our deals!" he realized. "That's amazing."

Toshiro snorted a laugh and smiled meekly.

Renji pulled the sleeve of his white shirt up off of his wrist and blinked a few times to properly see his watch under the dim lighting. "Holy shit, it's one thirty, kid." Toshiro's brow pulled down against his eyes at the nickname.

"Well, yeah, I gotta go." he sighed, rubbing at the sooty crescents beneath his eyes. He turned on the attractive dealer and headed towards the cash in desk. A buxom woman slid over the desk, laying her obscenely large breasts across the table.

"Ooh, that's a lot of chips ya got there!" she said shrilly.

Toshiro quietly gave his chips to the woman, ignoring her out of tune humming at the best of his ability. When she came back, a large brick of money sat in her pal.

"Here ya are, cute thing." she flirted, handing him the money. She leaned in as he wrapped his small hand around the cash. "And believe me, I'm glad I get to see a decent looking guy around here." she flipped her strawberry blonde curls over her shoulder, winking a pale eye.

"Stop harassing the guy, Adena." Renji walked up behind Toshiro and laid a hand over his shoulder.

Adena shrugged. "I was just trying to keep customers coming in, you know."

Renji shook his head and steered Toshiro towards the door. Toshiro looked over his shoulder to catch Adena winking at him and twinkling her fingers. They reached the outside of the restraunt, greeted with rain slicked roads, buzzing taxis and street lights, and the tangent smell of cigarette smoke.

"Why are you coming with me?" Toshiro bluntly asked as they hailed for a cab together.

Renji looked each ways of the street. "I'm going to _my _home, not yours, dumb ass." he chirped.

"Well I didn't know." Renji smirked as Toshiro's cheeks raised in a smile tentatively.

"So, what are you doing in betting for your age, huh, Shiro?" Renji said through gritted teeth as he lit a cigarette. Both were parked on a bench and had given up with their taxi hunting.

"Need cash."

Renji snorted. "Obviously since you got thirteen hundred in one night! Shit." his dark eyes went crossed as he tried to relight his cigarette. He stamped it out and poured elaborate curses down at the scrap of paper. Toshiro chuckled at his creative imagination. "Shut up." he playfully spat.

A taxi had finally hunkered down in front of the two, Renji directing towards it. "You go ahead. I'm gonna sit here for a while."

Toshiro looked at his eyes but he redirected them. Toshiro knew that something was bothering the redhead. He wanted to get him in the taxi, not knowing the exact pain the man was in. Some were mild, some were extreme and he had seen some that had resulted in death at their own hands and he did not want his possibly knew found companion to go through that kind of torture. Renji looked up with a grin. _No, _He thought, _He's not in that stage and its better for him to figure through it here. _

_Toshiro opened the car when Renji called out to him. "Tell your parents you're sorry for staying out late!" he joked. Toshiro weakly smiled and shut the door. His heart sank and he slumped into the uncomfortable black leather seat. A coat-wrapped hand felt under his scarf to cradle his throbbing chest, a smooth, cold metal meeting his trembling fingertips through the thin clothe of his shirt._

"_Where are we goin?" the taxi driver asked roughly._

_A single tear drooped from his eyes. "The Orphanage."_


	2. Past Pains

As the car picked up speed, Renji couldn't help but watch it mosey down the road. It wasn't much of his taste to watch his companions go but he felt a certain protectiveness over Toshiro. Taking out another cigarette, he slumped against the bench. The day wasn't as bad as it could have been but it wasn't the best either. The usual drunkards came in, got what they wanted, vivacious women and lecherous men thinking they could woo their way into his night, and angry, threatening players that mouthed out at him for his 'unfair' dealings. At least he had met Toshiro. The smoke from his cigarette curled up towards his eyes, shrouding them in a grey purple mist. He felt suspicious or maybe just tentative of the young boy, like there was something not exactly ok with him, either it be his situation in life or the way he dealt with himself.

Relaxing against the back of his usual bench, he slung back his head and let rain drops wittle their way down his sharp jaw line. This was a regular routine for him, it relaxed him and got him feeling a bit more whole and intune with himself. Besides, he had to do something to cope with his growingly out of pace depression.

His depression didn't start too long ago, not much of two years. Before he was out working under the bright lights with hands full of plastic cards he was living at home with his father and mother. Both were tycoons of business and held great esteem for themselves in the long run. With chins set high, the duo thought of themselves as nothing short of being godly. Renji had learned from them the greatest lessons of money and management and was soon the best in his class dealing with economy classes. But that was before times got rough. In later years of school, he was brought in to the variety of crowds the school had to offer, not necessarily the best either. He learned what smoking felt like, how it kissed your lungs with it's burning breath, and the biting sensation whiskey gave you when it sloshed down your throat. He liked it, very much. Instead of going along the path of finance and law like his parents had wished and mandated for him, Renji found his way through art. Along with the feeling the controlled substances he found that the tactile feel of a pen on paper made his nerves jump and make him feel more individual rather than a hand crafted manequine made by his parents. Though that lasted too short. His parents found out about his classes and banned him from them, telling him that doing such things were worthless and held no meaning in the world. This enraged him. He wanted his life, his jobs not theirs, so he went against them and continued his out of control behavior. He found drugs and came to them for the void that was supposed to be filled with parental love and crawled around bed sheets for the organic love the drugs never seemed to hold. He was a regular in the cop's car, and also the cop beds to keep him out of jail. His parents were growing ill with rage of their lost boy, their fallen boy, and his antics but were completely broken when he came back with a tattoo on his back. The ugly thing was that of tribal patterns, snakes and lines of nothing in general. His mother cried over it's horrific and disgusting asthetics and his father heated at the face of it, the face of disobedience. Renji found beatings waiting for him every night until he was finally thrown onto the streets, unwanted as an individual rather than a carbon copy of themselves.

Renji clenched his jaw at the recollection. He was tossed as a piece of garbage and was left to find some way of life, nothing but the clothes on his back to aid him. He had no job, he had no proffesional training, and resorted in protetuting and selling drugs to start off his money. The only thing that his parents had given him was a savvy money mind so spending and saving and organizing the money was of no challenge for him and he got on quickly. The club he worked at was now his adopted home, the only taker for his tossed ass.

Sighing, Renji puffed out the last of smoke from his cigarette and crunched it under his boot, letting out all of the anger he had inside on it. He didn't like to dwell on the past but his mind and psyche loved to which spawned his depression. He stood from the bench and began walking to his apartment with his head hung in the rain and the scent of cigarettes and self disappointment lingering behind him.

* * *

"Thanks." Toshiro handed the cab driver a ten dollar bill as he walked out towards the door of his decrepit home.

The Orphanage wasn't necessarily the best of all places for a misloved child. The outside was messily built with old red brick grimed with black ooze and the iron ladders off to the side were rusted to the core, ready to wear away with the slightest touch. Windows were cracked and near time to shatter onto the garbage littered streets with their moth infested curtains. Toshiro walked up to the front doors, the smell of water damage evident on the double wooden doors.

Toshiro felt a lump form in his throat. The Sir of the Orphanage didn't know about his sneaking out nor his abundant cash winnings. He knew that if he were to figure out about his escapes he would be faced with a terrible meeting with the Sir's hands.

As he plugged in the key, he turned it slowly to keep the tumbler from making too much sound. With the door unlocked and his stomach in a whirl, he clicked open the door. His ears pumped with blood and his jaw tightened as the door creaked. Toshiro opened the door wide enough for his tiny frame to snake through, one of the advantages of being poorly fed. Toshiro quickly and silently shut the door, locking it and stuffing the extra key back in his pocket. He looked around the house, no lights or presence anywhere in the atmosphere. Toes dancing across the old wood floor, he zig zagged to the stairs and knew exactly which board and spot made an unconvenient squeak. He slowly made his way up the stairs and into his room, letting out a sigh of relief. Toshiro went through this nearly every night, adrenaline pumping, body quaking, and senses bumped to the top of their ability and landing on top of his bed in exasperation.

Night lingered over his head as he sifted through his fan of cash. The smell of the paper stung his nose everytime he flipped them, the pungent smell of greed. He tossed them into the cut out in his four poster bed and recovered the secret compartment. Toshiro felt disgusted looking down on the money. He knew he earned it fair and square but still, the sight of money gave him no ease at mind.


End file.
